3 Days. It all comes down to this. #WeWillNotGoBack pic.twitter.com/g89Ms9QZEG
— Young Democrats of America (@youngdems) November 5, 2022
down in FL knocking on doors to GOTV.
get off Twitter. make calls. canvass. do what you can to save the future.
we are in the endgame now pic.twitter.com/odoztQgmOp
— dengre (@denngree) November 5, 2022
This election belongs to the young. pic.twitter.com/DCcLNOAa8E
— PoliticsGirl (@IAmPoliticsGirl) November 5, 2022
A little Crazy-as-a- rabid-bat-Lauren Boebert (CO-3 Insurrectionist) hopeful news:
But recent polls show Democratic challenger Adam Frisch is not just within striking distance but has pulled into a statistical dead-heat. That came as a shock to my preconceived notions.
First, Keating Research issued a poll conducted between the end of September and beginning of October that showed Frisch trailing Boebert by only two points, 47% to 45%. That contrasts with the 49% to 42% the same group reported in July.
Given that Keating is a reputable pollster with a “B/C” rating from FiveThirtyEight.com, the poll likely demonstrates real movement in the race. Frisch may be encouraging persuadable voters who do not like Boebert’s brash persona to consider voting for him.
Second, a poll commissioned by Center Street PAC showed Frisch with a 5-point lead, 45% to 40%. Given both the source and the peculiar methodology of the poll, I wouldn’t put much confidence in its results. However, given the paucity of public polling available in the race, it does at least suggest that the Keating poll movement may be real.
But let us not get complacent, because there’s a bad moon rising:
An ominous blood moon lunar eclipse will hang in the sky as ballots are set to be tallied for the Nov. 8, 2022 general election. https://t.co/MCjZzequ8M
— FOX31 Denver KDVR (@KDVR) November 2, 2022
For my fellow Buffy fans:
I’ve had a hell of a week that has topped off a hellish 18 months of loss, so I do NOT have the bandwidth for bad news on Tuesday (dragging into whenever votes finish being counted), so I need the Dems to pull this off. Meanwhile, I’m going to resist the urge to crawl under the covers and continue to cook, clean, and generally organize things today to keep myself functional. I suppose the dogs could use a walk, but these days that takes mental strength I’m lacking.
And after finding all this fairly good election news for you, I’m tuning out all social media and news today. I’m sure if some dramatic happens, someone will text me. 😁
Speaking of pups – we got our first snow night before last, and it was cold. And SOMEONE wouldn’t turn the heat up.
How many Great Danes can fit on one cushion…let’s find out. 1…2…2 1/2, then they kind of flow over. LOL
This is an open thread…. (I hope everytime you guys read that you hear James Earl Jones, because that’s what I hear when I type it).
Baud
Nominated for rotating tag.
Baud
Great Danes playing naked twister.
Captain C
@Baud: Isn’t that how they always play it?
Sure Lurkalot
That’s a lot of dog there.
lafcolleen
Just signed up for GOTV texting for Michigan. I dont like phone banking but texting is my speed. I know it can be annoying but I think it does work on the margins.
Another Scott
I like our chances – a lot. But we’ve got to finish the race strong.
Meanwhile, …Phys.org:
It’s always, always good to understand the limitations of models and the limitations of data fed into them. Complex models are great (look at how weather forecasting has improved over the last, say, 30 years), but they’re only as good as the data feeding them. Just because something was calculated on a supercomputer doesn’t mean that it is correct.
(Extension of these ideas to political polling and exit polls and “pulse of the people” is left as an exercise for the reader.)
Thinking, and not fooling yourself, is always required!
Cheers,
Scott.
Starfish
So many things about this post are uplifting, including the possibility of someone beating Boebert.
Kropacetic
When the Ds win and the blood moon is retroactively declared a bad omen, I’ll counter that it was a dark shadow that left our Earth
ETA: Oop need new nym on the desktop.
Sure Lurkalot
Like many, I find it hard not to be gloomy after even brief glances of the MSM’s daily take and have no idea whether to believe the Simon Rosenbergs about how all the polls are wrong…reminiscent of Sam Wang and 2016 about how all the polls were right.
But a world of data driven everything has so many inflection points, it’s easy to get out of whack like the LinkedIn email to me this morning about how I’m “on a roll with my career” when I’ve been retired for 5 years, evidenced by my profile where my last engagement ended…um…5 years ago.
So, back and forth I go, trusting and then not, anything to do with extrapolating human behavior using data driven models informed by who the fuck knows.
ETA Another Scott brings the receipts!
Soprano2
But….but…..but…NPR told me all the core Democratic groups aren’t enthusiastic about voting at all. 🙄🙄🙄🙄 I think that was right after their daily reminder about how bad inflation is, just in case anyone has forgotten.
Jackie
Speaking of young voters – this is a great deep dive:
https://www.grid.news/story/politics/2022/10/21/young-people-are-more-anxious-about-politics-than-ever-is-that-why-theyre-turning-out-to-vote-in-2022/
John S.
@Soprano2:
They’re such Nice Polite Republicans. If you give them some money, they might even give you a tote bag!
TaMara
I know I said I was turning thing off, but I could not help it. LOL I was waiting for Carson, my robot vacuum to finish so I could mop.
WaterGirl
In case anyone missed the previous post:
Donate
Please help spread the word if you know people in Maine or if you’re on social media.
Eyeroller
@Another Scott: Weather models are based on physics, not statistics. There are approximations to subgrid phenomena like clouds but those are also based on physical models. The data comes in to initialize the model. Forecasters run ensembles with different perturbations of the initialization data, which is one way we get the variations in forecasts. Higher resolution doesn’t mean the model is more complex, since most of the physics is the same, and one can actually get rid of some of the approximations like the aforementioned cloud parameterization at sufficiently high resolution. Sensitivity studies are very important in weather and climate research, as well as model comparisons. I think the steady increase in forecast “skill” (how accurate it is) is strong validation of those models.
He talks about “training” models and general-circulation models are not “trained.” Training implies machine learning. I have heard of increasing use of machine learning in climate modeling (I have been out of the field for years so am only superficially acquainted with recent work) and I will say that I’m something of a skeptic about the way that science seems to be turning into a mania for machine learning–it’s going on in every field. ML seems to do well in very limited domains and is IMHO pretty questionable in others, particularly in areas that do not have much underlying physics.
I have seen this sort of thing before; in particular Nate Silver had a chapter in his book on climate modeling in which he apparently applied the kind of analysis one would do for a purely statistics- or data-based model, without regard to the fact that there are underlying physical principles that constrain the model.
BeautifulPlumage
In some traditions the moon represents female power. I choose to think that a (menstrual) blood red moon represents righteous female rage, so of course male-led belief systems would be fearful.*
*I just developed this deeply-held belief as I read this post, but it sounds good right now : )
Qrop Non Sequitur
@BeautifulPlumage: I love it.
Dorothy A. Winsor
I’m sorry you’ve had a bad week, TaMara. I hope whatever was causing the problems is over and done with
Captain C
@Soprano2:
None of their immediate social group is, probably, and who else counts?
TaMara
@BeautifulPlumage: I like how you think!
WaterGirl
@Dorothy A. Winsor: TaMara mentioned the anniversary of her mom’s death in a post, and of course she lost her sweet Bixby and other beloved pets. Loss is not additive; it’s exponential.
WaterGirl
@TaMara: Love seeing that. The video Ben Wikler posted about the lines at school in WI was so sped up and was on a loop, so it was harder to get a feel for how long the line was, but apparently that line was crazy long, too.
BeautifulPlumage
@Soprano2: I dropped them in 2015 after realizing they had been turned rightward. I loved “Wail Wait…” but am much happier that I transferred my $$ to our local, independent music (and culture, and support for mental health, and…) station KEXP. My mental health is far better for the switch.
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
Did want to add this here. I got a text from Resistbot:
Sounds pretty good to me!
TaMara
@WaterGirl:
@Dorothy A. Winsor:
And Wednesday night we got the devastating news that one of my favorite uncles, and an amazing human being, died suddenly. I’m just out the ability to cope.
Dangerman
Ok, I know they took down Alabama (Praise Be) but how the hell did Tennessee jump over Georgia and Ohio State?
Raven, I turn my lonely eyes to you.
Um … woo woo woo?
raven
@Dangerman: It’s one poll, we’re one in one and three in the other. It won’t mean shit in about 4 hours. I’m leaving in 25 minutes
eta. Bama had 17 penalties and, if the greatest coach of all time hadn’t fucked up the last possession, they still would have won.
Jackie
@raven: Say *Hi* to Herschel – he’s campaigning there today 😛
Dangerman
@raven: I think Georgia is gonna put a hurt on Tennessee (although their QB is a damn stud) …
… and I like LSU over Bama.
If Northwestern pulls it out of the hat, it could be chaos Saturday.
I don’t know what Georgia did in Game 1, but best team I’ve watched this year is Oregon (haven’t seen many games truth be told).
BeautifulPlumage
@BeautifulPlumage: ugh. “Wait, wait…” not Wail, wait…, Which sounds like a toddler’s strategy
JoyceH
@Captain C: Argh! “Enthusiasm”. The problem with polls is that the innumerate (the math equivalent of illiterate) will grab onto a statistic in a poll and write about a problem that really doesn’t exist. One poll showed 74 percent of Republicans very enthusiastic about the election versus 69 percent of Democrats so an article is created about the “enthusiasm gap”. A friend fretted to me about that alleged gap, and I pointed out to her that those are percentages of different sized pools of people! There are a lot more registered Democrats than registered Republicans, so 69 percent of Democrats is more actual people than 74 percent of Republicans.
Josie
It’s great to see that long line, possibly for Fetterman, but there is no excuse for making people wait that long to vote. Why are there not more voting machines for those people?
Captain C
@JoyceH:
Yeah, 74% of, say, 100 is less than 69% of (checks math) 108. It’s kind of amazing how much innumeracy is out there.
Timill
@Dangerman: This is the playoffs ranking, first week. In the AP poll, Georgia is still #1 and Tennessee and Ohio State are joint #2.
The other answer is that Tennessee beat better opponents more soundly than Georgia and Ohio State…
Josie
@TaMara:
I’m so sorry for the rough week you are having. Sometimes it seems like the hits come in multiples, and all you can do is hug your babies and wait for it all to pass.
NotMax
Open thread?
Weekend longish watch. The (not so) great British baking show.
narya
I’m waiting for the rain to blow by to force myself to take a walk. I finally sucked it up and dropped the coin to upgrade the monitor on my rowing machine and get a bluetooth module so I can track my exercise on my various apps/phone; the current incarnation doesn’t result in me getting “credit” for the workout, and I want the virtual gold star, damnit. Yes, I know, I could use the machine without the tracking, but the tracking apps really serve as that little spark of motivation that keeps me moving, and I really want an alternative for those days when the weather is too cold, or icy, or whatever. I’m embarrassed by this, so of course I’m posting it publicly.
BeautifulPlumage
@TaMara: hugs to you. Oh my gosh that is rough!
narya
p.s. Penzey’s is running their $50-gift-card-for-$35 right now. I use them for gifts, but also for me.
Reverse tool order
When you’re ready for a little break from all this:
Two brothers in Ecuador playing “The Sound of Silence” on various forms of wooden flutes.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ndUCNnhH03Q
Geminid
This morning CNN reported that Liz Cheney (R-WY) has endorsed 7th Virginia CD incumbent Abigail Spanberger:
Then Cheney took a shot at Republican candidate Yesli Vega:
Former 5th District Republican Congressman Denver Riggleman also endorsed Spanberger in an ad that gets a lot of radio play. Riggleman represented a quarter of Spanberger’s new district for only one term. Still, his emphasis of Spanbergers bipartisanship may attract Independent voters who, like it or not, will probably decide this race. Right now rating sites like Cook’s and Sabato’s outfit rate the 7th as “Lead D.”
When someone asked Cook’s Dave Wasserman which bellwether districts to watch next Tuesday night, he listed among others both Spanberger’s and Elaine Luria’s 2nd Virginia CD as races to follow. A Spanberger loss, he said, would presage substantial losses for Democrats elsewhere. Conversely, a Luria hold would indicate a better night for Democrats.
Then he cautioned that write in votes are counted later and results might turn on them. In 2020 Spanbergers race was not called for three days because of time spent counting write in ballots.
Baud
@raven:
Ignore the polls. Just play!
Jackie
@Josie: My guess? It’s a Blue district.
Jackie
@Reverse tool order: The was beautiful! I have goosebumps!
stinger
@BeautifulPlumage: Pretty much what I was going to say, though you said it better! The blood moon is the goddess in all her power!
WaterGirl
@TaMara: It’s just too much. I’m sorry.
Juju
@BeautifulPlumage: It works for me.
Ohio Mom
@Geminid: Do endorsements like Liz Cheney’s for Abigail Spanberger or Oprah’s for Fetterman make a difference, I don’t know. But on the chance they do, maybe make them further in advance of Election Day, especially in this era of early voting?
Ohio Mom
@TaMara: My condolences. I have found the sudden, out-of-nowhere deaths of family and friends harder to deal with than those following an illness. It’s the shock on top of the grief that has knocked me over.
Holding you in the light.
kalakal
For those who want to see a Blood Moon if you don’t see it on Tuesday you’ll have to wait till 2025 for the next total Lunar eclipse
https://blogs.nasa.gov/Watch_the_Skies/2022/11/03/last-chance-to-see-total-lunar-eclipse-until-2025/
Goku (aka Amerikan Baka)
@TaMara:
I’m so sorry for your loss
Geminid
@Ohio Mom: I really can’t say much about this question in general. There are not so many persuadable voters these days but just swinging a few hundred could make the difference in a close race.
As far as timing goes, I expect that people who are undecided haven’t yet voted and may not have paid very much attention until now, so the Cheney endorsement could be timely.
Fetterman might benefit more than usual from a late endorsement. He started out strong and an endorsement early might not not have had the impact that one might have now, when his lead has been slipping. I’m watching from 200 miles away, but it seems that Fetterman might be getting help when he most needs it.
Martin
Apologies for wall of text.
This is why the polling is busted. I’m not saying it’s busted in Dems favor, just that it’s busted. Here’s the NYT/Sienna cross tab for Fetterman/Oz.
MALE 48% [47%]
FEMALE 51% [53%]
18-29 11% [14%]
30-44 20% [23%]
45-64 35% [36%]
65+ 32% [27%]
WHITE 79%
BLACK 7%
NON-WHITE 10%
B.A.+ 40%
NO B.A. 60%
BIDEN 46%
TRUMP 42%
DEM. 35% [45%]
REP. 36% [49%]
IND. 24% [5%]
Now, this isn’t the topline. This is the likely voter model. What they are saying here is that they think that 48% of the likely voters will be male, 51% female, etc. The numbers in brackets are the actual percentages from the 2020 exit polls that NYT/Siena ran. So, their likely voter model says that women will constitute 2% less of the actual electorate in 2022 than they were in 2020, that men are more likely to turn out next week than they did in 2020. That 18-29 will be 3% less of the electorate and 65+ will be 5% more.
Now, those are all pretty reasonable numbers in a generic environment. We assume the olds will always vote, so their share goes up, and the yoots will stay home so their share goes down. But 18-19 was 12% in 2018. Do we think their share will be lower than it was in 2018? Gender breakdown was 49% male/51% female. Do we think that will be unchanged from 2018?
I mean, yeah, we can look at the Twitter/Tiktok clips from UTAustin showing a huge line of young people (its a university, who the fuck else would be in that line) or from downtown Philly between Penn and Drexel you’ll get something similar and think that young people turnout will be great, but you look at those lines and they’re mostly women. Like, overwhelmingly so. Universities are biased toward 18-29, but they aren’t biased toward on gender (a little in favor of women).
So we see evidence that the turnout models may not be right. The adjustments from general to midterm seem to be pretty generic. We see a change in how hard they push leaners on the party identity question. Did they do any meaningful broad demographic polling on likely to vote post Dobbs? Doesn’t look like it.
So the way the polling works, they can’t call everyone, so they shape the calling pool based on the likely voter model. So the poll only works if the turnout matches the model. They get x number of 18-29 year olds on the phone to answer the questions and then normalize that response to the expected number of 18-29 year olds (they scale the results as needed). And given what we’ve learned that poll completion rates are 1% or lower, there’s also a self-selection bias in there as well. When so few people are willing to participate in the poll, it calls into question whether the people who do are representative of the whole. Now, I answer polls, but I do that because I used to run polls and focus groups for a bit, so I’m sympathetic to the pollster. My daughter doesn’t because her social anxiety makes it really hard to do that. You pretty much gotta catch her while she’s nursing her 2nd white claw.
So I don’t know how this is going to go. My anecdotes look good for Dems but that’s the information silo I’m in, so of course that bias will be there. But if the anecdotes don’t favor Dems, they also don’t favor the likely voter models. I have a hard time believing those lines of students all universally were taken when all of the women’s study and nursing classes let out and that’s why there are no men in them.
I also don’t take much from the vote by mail (VBM) results in comparison to 2020. Understand that the 2020 voting behavior, particularly by Dems were not an ideological move toward VBM but were a practical response to not wanting to get Covid at the polling place or give it to someone. That practical consideration doesn’t really exist now. Dems that prefer in person I would expect to return to in person. Many will stick with VBM because they did it and liked it. Some states make VBM hard to do, so they’re more likely to revert than us in CA where everyone gets mailed a ballot, prepaid return, no questions asked.
So, don’t get complacent, don’t panic. Polls are almost certainly busted – even my political man-crush Cornell Belcher says that they’re busted and he’s a pollster, but who the fuck knows how they’re busted. We are living in interesting times.
WaterGirl
@Reverse tool order: That was beautiful!
dnfree
@Another Scott: Thank you for sharing! It’s like when I tell my husband that calculating gas mileage to three decimal places is meaningless because the data isn’t that precise. The gas pump he used today vs when he last filled the car have cut off at different levels, the temperature is different each time….
middlelee
@BeautifulPlumage: I just made it my deeply-held belief too. Why let it be a bad omen when it can be a powerful matriarchal announcement, “We are here and we fucking vote?”
rikyrah
@Starfish:
Which is something I didn’t think was even possible
rikyrah
Christopher Bouzy (@cbouzy) tweeted at 6:02 AM on Sat, Nov 05, 2022:
Republicans can erase Democrats’ lead on Election Day; it happens often. The problem for Republicans is the influx of newly registered voters. If a substantial number of these voters wait to vote on Election Day and vote Democrat, then Republicans will have a bad night…
(https://twitter.com/cbouzy/status/1588849309037928448?s=02)
persistentillusion
@narya: Thanks for sharing the Penzey’s info. Just did some X-mas shopping with your help!
FlyingToaster
@Josie:
Several issues:
In states with R dominated legislatures, they designate fewer early polling places in cities than in suburbs.
In nearly all states, whether R or D, you may well have multiple polling places sharing a facility on election day.
In my (new) town here in the
People’s RepublicCommonwealth of Massachusetts, we have 1 early polling place (Town Hall) and 7 precinct polling places on election day. The Senior Center has 2 precincts. There will be lines at my precinct at opening (7am) and just before closing (8pm), because that’s people going to/from work. When I’m likely to vote — midmorning — there won’t be much of a line.Where my mom lives (Florida) there’s one early polling place at the community center and then 5 precincts all vote at the nearest high school. So she just votes by mail.
Also, I don’t think anyone in the Northeast uses “voting machines” any longer; we’re all paper ballots and scanners, and the limitation is the room where votes are filled out. Early voting in town halls and libraries tend to have room for 20-odd folks, plus the drop box(es) for the sealed early ballot. If 500 people show up to vote, there’s a line to get your ballot from the election clerk, then a line to get into the room.
So it goes.
frosty
@Josie:
They’re not in line to vote. There is no early voting in PA. They are there for a Fetterman/Biden/Obama rally at Temple. See the big “T” flags?
eachother
Back from canvassing. 44 houses.
Cold and windy.
1/2 not home. (This is a rendered list of Dems.). Most I spoke with will vote Tuesday. Rest already voted. Everyone tolerant of my interruption.
Need to get gloves that work with touch phones. One cold still stiff exposed hand. 5 miles of canvas.
Baud
@eachother:
👍
eachother
@TaMara:
First, the long line to vote gave me chills. Then tears, because it is real and so is their willing sacrifice to vote.
Sad for your loss Tamara.
My great uncle Ben taught me to drive. I honor him for that. Also, he was very neat in his living habits. Every time I hang my clothes, I think of him affectionately.
With Love for you.
Mai Naem mobile
I had a long drive today and ended up listening to CSPAN radio who had Kelly Ann Conway on first followed by Charlie Cook, Rachel Bitcofer and Matthew Dowd. I am trying hard not to be negative but Charlie Cook just really brought me down. Nobody was positive on the Dems. chances. The best they had was nobody knows. Conway is just such a garbage person. She kept on referring to TFG as ‘the president’ and President Biden as ‘Biden’. Its bad enough she calls TFG president but then not calling Joe Biden President Biden. Really? Go fuck off in your nutcracker uniform Kelly Ann.